No your eyes are not deceiving you. There are indeed 24 councillor Noel Tuohys standing in the photo above.
The Portlaoise municipal district councillor, who is running for re-election on Friday May 24, has opted for cardboard cut-outs of his face to campaign with rather than corriboard election posters.
Cllr Tuohy has been very outspoken over election posters in the past.
Known for his humour in over 30 years of Portlaoise Pantos, on social media and as a very witty MC of the Portlaoise St Patrick’s Day parade, Noel used his humour to come up with these ‘face masks’.
He said: “As the slogan says, THERE IS NO PLANET B.
“I have imposed my own election poster ban to show support and solidarity with those campaigning for a better environment, but we can only succeed in combating climate change for future generations if we do this together.
“There is only one planet and for that matter only one Noel Tuohy and I’m asking voters to support them both come election day,” quipped the Portlaoise councillor, who lined out with supporters sporting Noel Tuohy lookalike masks, as an alternative to posters, to try demonstrate that there are plenty of alternatives to plastic posters.
He claimed that political parties are still ‘playing catch-up’ with public opinion on election posters.
“Not for the first time, the political parties are way behind the curve of public opinion on the use of election posters.
“It shows a lack of leadership for political parties to be complaining about littering, illegal dumping, climate change and the environment on one hand and then on the other to be using tens of thousands of plastic posters and cable ties for these elections,” said the Labour cllr.
Cllr Tuohy claimed that election posters date back to a time when there was only one TV station and one radio station in the entire country and everyone had to wait for the daily paper to read the death notices.
“There are so many other platforms nowadays to promote your profile, posters are pointless and it is time we consigned them to history and for politicians to stop playing catch-up with the public who are setting the agenda on this most important issue of our environment, pollution, and biodiversity,” he concluded.
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